Creating pauses in Poser

I've used Qavimator for a long time now and know how to make animations for SL. I am trying Poser 7 now to create new smoother animations.

What I don't seem to get is how to make still movements (pauses) in an animation in Poser. For instance: man sits down and does not move. After 3 seconds he moves his leg. Then he moves it back to the position in frame 2.

In Poser I create my starting sitting pose in frame 2. I set frame 2 as a keyframe. Then I copy frame 2 to frame 90 to create the pause of 3 seconds. Then, in frame 100 I move the leg. In frame 110 the leg is moved back again because I copy frame 2 to 110. At the end I do the spline-splitting on frames 1 and 2.

Looks simple and straightforward. Only problem is, when I play the animation, that the man also moves body parts in the in-between frames where he shouldn't. So in this example: between frames 2 and 90. I didn't move anything in these frames.

Am I doing something wrong?

And second question: is it necessary to specifically set every keyframe (1-2-90-100-110) in the animation or just frame 1 and 2?

The issue is the spline interpolation. By default, Poser smooths out the movement between keyframes. In your case though you don't want that, so use the Animation Palette to set the keyframes around your pause to Linear interpolation. That'll make the parts freeze completely.

Oh and no, you don't need to set a keyframe every frame.

I would suggest you change the interpolation between the "static" key frames to "constant" in Poser. It is unfortunate that Poser defaults to "spline" interpolation from the point of view of animating for SL, since most of the time only contant or linear interpolation will work.

[Open the animation palate - click on "key" symbol near bottom right of screen - scroll up to the top of the window and click on the column of your first static pose frame and then click on the "constant" button at top right of window. Repeat selecting the end keyframe for your static pose. The animation frame span will change colour to reflect the interpolation set.]

Re: your second question. You do not have to set any key frames at all with Poser. When you click the "animation on" button (key symbol usually to left of screen but associated with the camera controls palate) Poser will automatically make every frame you create a key frame. The little key symbol is coloured red when set on.

Good luck